I got some sheet metal on Thursday, and bought a nibbler on Saturday to cut the patch panel from the cardboard template I’d made.The nibbler made cutting the panel easy and I soon had a rough version of the panel ready.

It’s the first time I’d ever tried to make anything like this, and I wished I had done metalwork in school.The shape was easy to fold up but took a lot of shaping to get the bow in the wing and the folds just right. With cardboard you can press it into awkward corners easily, but with metal it needs to be removed, reshaped and tried again. I bolted the hinge back into place, then marked and drilled the holes for the rear of the hinge mount.

The hinge mount bolted into a pressed hole on the original, so I made a small pocket for it and welded it to the back of the patch.
With the hinge mounting dropped into the pocket, and the mounting bolts tightened up, the edges could be tidied up and the whole lot tweaked to fit with a file. I’ll weld it in place once the other sides done so I can take any measurements I need from it. I’m chuffed to bits.